Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi is welcomed by relatives and supporters after she was released from an Israeli prison, July 29, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Mohamad Torokman.

A Palestinian teenager released by Israel on Sunday after completing a prison term for kicking and slapping an Israeli soldier urged continued struggle against the Jewish state, a call echoed by the president of the Palestinian Authority.

Ahed Tamimi, 17, became a heroine to Palestinians after the incident last December outside her home in Nabi Saleh.

Israelis regarded the incident, which Tamimi’s mother relayed live on Facebook, as a staged provocation.

Tamimi, who was 16 at the time of her detention, faced 12 charges, including aggravated assault. In March, she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge sheet that included assault and was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, dating back to her arrest in December.

Wearing her trademark black-and-white chequered Arab scarf, Tamimi greeted dozens of well-wishers in brief remarks outside the home of a Nabi Saleh resident killed by Israeli forces during a riot last year.

“From this martyr’s house, I say: resistance is continuing until the occupation is removed,” she told reporters. “All the female prisoners in jail are strong, and I thank everyone who stood by me while I was in prison.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in a statement published by the official news agency Wafa after he met Tamimi and her mother, described the teenager as “a model of peaceful civil resistance … proving to the world that our Palestinian people will stand firm and constant on their land, no matter what the sacrifice.”